The Musical Brain: And Other Stories

No Witnesses

CIRCUMSTANCES HAD REDUCED ME TO begging in the street. Since direct and sincere requests were ineffective, I had to resort to fraud and trickery, always on a small scale, pretending, for example, to be paralyzed, blind, or afflicted with some terrible disease. It wasn’t something I enjoyed at all. One day it occurred to me that I could try a subtler, more ingenious strategy, which, even if it worked only once and wasn’t very lucrative, would at least give me the satisfaction of having carried out a well considered, and, as I saw it, almost artistic plan. I needed someone gullible to come along, preferably in a place where there would be no witnesses. I walked for a while, on my aching feet (they really were aching), through alleys that were all too familiar to me, since I lived and slept in them, until I found a corner that was, I felt sure, well out of the way. That was where I settled down to wait for my prey. I leaned against the wall, half hidden by a Dumpster, holding a shallow box I’d found, which someone must have thrown away: this box was what had given me the idea of trying a trick to get some money. I should explain that at this point I still didn’t know what the trick would be. I was going to improvise it at the last moment. Suddenly it was night. The corner was very dark, but accustomed as I was to gloomy places, I could see fairly well. And just as I had predicted, no one passed by. It was what I needed: a quiet place with no witnesses. But I also needed a victim, and after some hours had elapsed I became convinced that no one would come along. I must have fallen asleep and woken up again several times. The silence was deep. I’m guessing that it would have been midnight when I heard steps: someone was approaching. I didn’t move. It was a man, that’s all I knew; there wasn’t enough light to see details. And before I could move, or call out, or get his attention, I saw him go to the Dumpster and start to rummage in it. I couldn’t really make him the target of my clever scam. All the same, I would have given it a try, if only to get a coin out of him so I wouldn’t feel I’d wasted the night. But before I could even begin to move, the stranger lifted something heavy out of the Dumpster and stifled a cry. I exercised my penetrating night vision. It was a bag full of gold coins. I was overcome at once by the most bitter regret I have ever experienced: it was a fortune, and it had been there, within arm’s reach, for hours — hours I’d wasted waiting for some innocent to come along so I could trick him out of a tiny sum of money. And now that innocent had come and snatched the treasure from under my nose. He looked both ways to make sure that no one had seen him, and started running. He hadn’t noticed me down on the ground. I’ve never had quick reflexes, but on this occasion, which was, I felt, momentous and unique, something like desperation impelled me to act. I simply stretched out my leg and tripped him. Just as he was speeding up, his foot caught on my leg and he fell flat on his face. As I’d predicted, the bag fell with him, and the coins scattered over the uneven paving stones of the alley with a loud jangling noise, shining auspiciously. I thought he’d rush to pick up as many as he could before running away, and that I’d be able to gather coins too, unchallenged, his fall and the scattering of the booty having put us on an equal footing as misappropriators. But that was not what happened, to my surprise and horror. Agile as a cat, the man picked himself up and hurled himself at me from a crouching position, pulling a huge knife from his pocket. In spite of living rough on the streets, I hadn’t toughened up. I was still timid and would run away from any kind of violence. But there was not the slightest hope of running away this time. He was already on top of me, raising the knife, then plunging it into my chest with tremendous force. It almost came out the other side and must have gone very close to my heart. I could feel death coming, with utter certainty. But imagine my surprise when I saw that the wound he’d inflicted on me had appeared in his chest, in just the same place, and was beginning to bleed. His heart had been wounded too. He looked down, baffled. He didn’t understand, and it was no wonder. He had stabbed me, and the wound had appeared in his body as well. He pulled the knife from my chest, and, with death beginning to cloud his vision, as it was clouding mine, stabbed again, next to the first wound, as if to test the strange phenomenon. And sure enough, the second wound appeared in his chest. It, too, began to bleed. It was the last thing I (or he) saw.

NOVEMBER 1, 2010